Recent Updates
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Court limits use of law aimed at career criminals
Legal News Center 01/13/2009The Supreme Court has ruled that a failure to report for prison does not count as a violent crime under a federal law intended to keep repeat criminals in prison longer. A unanimous court on Tuesday threw out a mandatory 15-year prison term given to ...
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Speedy trial issue lands before US Supreme Court
Legal News Center 01/12/2009After he was charged with hitting his girlfriend in the face, career criminal Michael Brillon sat in jail without bail for nearly three years, going through six public defenders before being tried for assault.The delays paid off — for Brillon: A Verm...
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Court strikes down federal sex offender law
Legal News Center 01/09/2009Congress overstepped its authority when it enacted a law allowing the federal government to hold sex offenders in custody indefinitely beyond the end of their prison terms, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.The law allowing civil commitment of "...
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Blackwater guards to appear in court Tuesday
Legal News Center 01/06/2009Five Blackwater Worldwide security guards are expected to appear in federal court to answer to manslaughter charges in the 2007 shooting deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad.The Blackwater guards are scheduled to appear for arraignment Tuesday aft...
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Rape conviction upheld despite juror's sex crime
Legal News Center 12/31/2008The Michigan Supreme Court on Tuesday let stand a rape conviction that was challenged because a juror didn't disclose that he had been convicted of a sex crime.Michigan law bars felons from serving on a jury.But the high court voted 5-2 to uphold the...
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Number of uncounted ballots in Minn. still unclear
Legal News Center 12/30/2008The campaigns of Republican Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken wrangled Monday over hundreds of unopened absentee ballots that could still tip Minnesota's Senate race.Lawyers ended a testy public negotiation session convened by the secretary of sta...
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Blagojevich lawyer to submit Obama report to panel
Legal News Center 12/29/2008The lead attorney for Gov. Rod Blagojevich said he plans to submit President-elect Barack Obama's internal report on contacts with the scandal-plagued governor to the Illinois House committee weighing impeachment.Attorney Ed Genson told the Chicago S...
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Feds rights to baseball drug tests back in court
Legal News Center 12/19/2008Federal appeals judges voiced skepticism Thursday that prosecutors had the right to seize urine samples of more than 100 major league players not originally involved in the BALCO drug investigation.In a case dealing with the government's search-and-s...
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Mass. court reprimands judge libeled by newspaper
Legal News Center 12/18/2008Massachusetts' top court has publicly reprimanded a judge who wrote threatening letters to the publisher of the Boston Herald after he won a $2 million libel judgment against the paper.The Supreme Judicial Court's punishment for Judge Ernest Murphy i...
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Justices chide California-based appeals court
Legal News Center 12/02/2008The Supreme Court took aim at one of its favorite targets Tuesday, criticizing a California-based federal appeals court for its ruling in favor of a criminal defendant.The justices threw out a decision by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Cour...
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Federal judges to rule on Calif. prison crowding
Legal News Center 12/01/2008California's day of reckoning has finally come for three decades of tough-on-crime policies that led to overcrowded prisons and unconstitutional conditions for inmates.The federal courts have already found that the prison system's delivery of health ...
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Protesters rally near Texas court in dragging case
Legal News Center 11/17/2008Protesters galvanized by a dragging death that has stirred memories of the notorious James Byrd case rallied twice outside an eastern Texas courthouse to speak out against a judicial system they consider racist.About 60 people, led by a contingent fr...